


Metabolism

by withoutdrawbacks



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-23
Updated: 2016-01-23
Packaged: 2018-05-15 17:06:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5792854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withoutdrawbacks/pseuds/withoutdrawbacks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How do you superhero on a model's diet? (spoiler: you don't)</p>
<p>feat. Adrien Agreste's feelings of inadequacy and Plagg the tsunderest kwami.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Metabolism

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on [tumblr](http://planswithnodrawbacks.tumblr.com/post/137689596143/metabolism).

He’s lost weight.

It’s not something he normally pays much attention to, but he has a shoot that afternoon, a routine ad spread that should have wrapped up by dinner time, and would have if not for the minor snag of the clothes not _fitting_. He winces when he looks in the mirror because the drape of the shirt is entirely wrong and the ensemble would absolutely not work with a belt but his pants threaten to slide down without one. He gets the attention of Shana from wardrobe as discreetly as he can, but all this accomplishes is that now there are _two_ people staring in confused despair at his reflection.

“I don’t understand,” she says, plucking at his sleeve as though she can make the extra fabric stop existing through the sheer power of her disbelief. “We just did the fitting two weeks ago.”

“I know,” Adrien says, because apparently bafflement removes his ability to do anything except state the obvious. “I was there.”

“I need to let Monsieur Roche know,” she says gloomily, making no move to leave and sounding as though she’d rather throw herself into a lion pit.

“I’ll talk to him,” Adrien offers. “You did your job great, this is my fault. My schedule was really tight the past few days and I skipped a bunch of meals.”

This is only partly true; his schedule had been tight, but it was also tightly regulated, and Nathalie would never be so disorganised as to cause him to miss any meals.

Shana tries to demur but it doesn’t take much persuasion for her to allow him to explain the situation to Antoine Roche in her stead. The photographer has a reputation for being no-nonsense and replacing staff - and models - without mercy, but he’s not unreasonable, and Adrien is usually the one they call _in_ to stand in for models that he’d dismissed for being uncooperative.

Monsieur Roche accepts his explanation with neither anger or sympathy. “There’s no help for it now,” he says, pulling at the ill-fitting fabric in much the same way as Shana had. “But maintaining your physique is also one of your responsibilities in this line of work, and you should remember that.”

The rebuke is mild considering the situation, because there’s also no help for the fact that the shoot can’t be postponed. The spreads are already three days late for colour separation and they have to be sent in before the printer closes for the weekend, so the rest of the afternoon disappears in a hurricane of hasty refittings, alteration, and scrambling to book an indoor location, since the lighting outdoors will be all wrong (read: nonexistent) by the time the adjustments are finished. Through it all, Adrien is a particularly useless eye of calm, with his only contribution being his ability to stand up as directed and hold his arms out to allow better access for the measuring tape.

“I’m really sorry,” he tells Shana during one of those sessions. She’s just gotten off the phone and while he hadn’t been trying to eavesdrop, he’d heard enough of the one-sided conversation to pick up that she’d just cancelled on a movie with her girlfriend.

“Don’t worry,” she says. “Occupational hazard.” Her tone isn’t accusatory, but she’s short enough that he can tell that further apology would be unwelcome and more about his own guilt than her feelings. He leaves her to finish her work in silence, thankful that he’s not booked for anything else today - with nothing to rearrange, Nathalie had accepted his vague mumbling about a wardrobe malfunction without asking for further details.

The shoot ends hours past its original schedule, but it ends successfully. “Quite a ways from the original concept,” Monsieur Roche says, as they’re reviewing the photographs, “But it works.”

It’s as good as praise coming from him, and Adrien feels a little better on the ride home - correction, he feels a little better for half the ride home, until a glance at his watch tells him - _aw, crap_ \- that he’s more than an hour late for patrol with Ladybug. Once the limo pulls up in front of the gates, it’s a mad dash to the kitchen for a wheel of Camembert, and then a… careful and nervous stroll through the security system’s blind spots, because that part would be way harder to explain if he was caught.

Ladybug’s tracker tells him - _aw, double crap_ \- that she’s more than halfway through today’s patrol route. The marker stops moving a few minutes later; she must have seen his own tracker come online and stopped for him to catch up, a thought which makes something small and warm bloom in his chest.

He finds her on the roof of a building he doesn’t know, leaning against a vent, one leg beneath her and the other curled up to her chest, deceptively casual but ready for action at a moment’s notice. She looks up without surprise when he drops next to her. For all that he’s the cat, her eyes are very bright in the darkness.

“I was beginning to think you wouldn’t show,” she says.

“And leave my lady in the lurch? I couldn’t paw - ”

He’s cut off by a red-clad finger to his mouth. “Don’t finish that,” she says, a hint of a smile in her warning - or is that a hint of warning in her smile - and really, what can he do but obey?

He stretches instead, a long roll of his spine, and when his lady throws herself fearlessly in the direction of the next building, he springs after.

The rest of the night passes without mishap, for which he’s grateful, because he’s not sure if he could bear it if he went three for three in inconveniencing the people around him all in one day. Parting is, as always, a sweet sorrow, though Ladybug seems unimpressed when he tells her as much. Still, there’s charm enough in the wrinkle of her nose that his lips curve up, unbidden, a smile that stays with him all the way to his room.

He’s usually hungry when he drops the transformation - he’s usually vaguely hungry all the time, actually, an affliction that he’s given to understand is suffered by most teenage boys; he remembers Nino talking about how his mother liked to complain that their grocery bill had doubled overnight - but he’s _ravenous_  now. Too late, he remembers that dinner had not been one of the mansion staff’s carefully calculated affairs, just a sandwich hastily gulped down minutes before the shoot started up again. He doesn’t dare sneak down to the kitchen, not at this hour, not with his luck and without Chat Noir’s night vision. He cracks open a bottle of water instead, downs half of it in one go.

“Yeah, I know, I know, _tomorrow_ ,” he says when Plagg grumbles in his ear, more wordless discontent than an actual complaint.

He drinks the rest of his water, shaking the last few drops over Plagg’s head when the kwami grumbles again. Indignant sputters follow him to the bathroom and Adrien smirks as he splashes water over his face and makes sure every trace of makeup has been washed off; Adrien Agreste sells on a wholesome, good-boy image and it takes an astonishing amount of makeup to make it look as though he’s not wearing any at all. He’d been in too much of a rush to check earlier, and he doesn’t want a repeat of that earful he got the one time he’d fallen asleep with makeup on.

When he’s done, he peers at the mirror with water-blurred eyes. His face seems unaffected by this afternoon’s problem, thank god, because his father would definitely notice _that_ , and his father’s reaction would definitely not be pretty.

Monsieur Roche’s reprimand swims to the surface of his thoughts - _one of your responsibilities, in this line of work,_  then, strangely enough, Shana’s voice, _occupational hazard_ , light and resigned. He doesn’t realise he’s repeated her statement aloud until Plagg flicks an ear in his direction.

“What was that?”

He _shouldn’t_  be losing weight, not unplanned, anyway, and he’s regularly scheduled for a nutritionist to that effect. But all her suggestions are tailored to a teenage boy who attends P.E. in school and fencing class out of it, not a teenage boy who regularly transforms into a superhero and runs around the rooftops of Paris.

“Duh,” Plagg says when Adrien shares his train of thought, in that tone of voice he often gets, the one that suggests that he suspects Adrien might be too stupid to live. It doesn’t sting because he’d last turned it on Adrien for not knowing the difference between Emmental and Gruyere. “It seriously didn’t occur to you before? All that energy doesn’t come from nothing.”

“I thought it came from _you_ ,” Adrien says.

“Most of it does,” Plagg admits. “But it comes from you too. Why do you think we get so tired if we try to transform when I’m low on cheese?”

Adrien tilts his head, considers this, then nods. He likes physics and despite the trouble it caused today, he’s strangely satisfied that magic or not, some part of the fundamental laws of the universe remains unbroken.  

“That was a hint, by the way,” Plagg adds, and only protests a little bit when Adrien swats at his tail.

“Is this - does Ladybug know? Does it affect her too? Should I say something?”

“Mh,” Plagg snorts, a private joke that he makes no move to share. “I don’t think you should worry about Ladybug.”

“You don’t think I should worry about anything,” Adrien says.

“I think you should worry about _yourself_ , for this one,” Plagg says, serious enough that Adrien looks over in surprise.

“There’s nothing to worry about,” Adrien says. “My appointment is at the end of the month, I’ll work it out with the nutritionist.”

It gives him enough time to figure out a script; the weight loss is self-explanatory and he could probably convince her that public school was just a little more intense than they’d previously figured, although he had to be careful not to lay it on too thick in case his father decided to rethink letting him attend, after all -

“You humans,” Plagg breaks in, rich with disgust. “I’ve had chosens too poor to eat, but never a rich one being starved before.”

Adrien rolls his eyes. “I’m not being _starved_ ,” he says. “I told you, I’ll work it out, it’s just like two weeks.”

“You humans,” Plagg says again. His voice is odd, a mix of censure and comfort at once.

It’s the latter that makes Adrien drop the argument. “Us humans,” he says with a small shrug, not sure what he’s agreeing with. He throws himself into bed, kicking his covers down to pile near his feet. Plagg curls up in the crook of his neck, his whiskers a soft tickle at Adrien’s ear. Adrien doesn’t complain.

**Author's Note:**

> i know it says chapter 1 of 2 but that is mostly wishful thinking. rest assured though that if the hypothetical chapter 2 ever existed Adrien would eat a cookie. it was actually the entire point of why I started this but I couldn't even make it to the cookie part, sob.


End file.
